Often in the mountain tops, where
Far-shining celebration gives delight to the gods
You brought a golden cup, a great vessel
Such as shepherds use
And setting lion’s milk in it
You made large unsavoury* cheese for the Argos-slayer

Lion’s cheese to Hermes, what does it mean? Athenaeus, who preserves the fragment, is unhelpful, taking interest only in the word σκύφος, adding to his collection of instances of different words for ‘vessel’.

The cheese may have been intended as baby food for Dionysus, whom Hermes cared for as a newborn. Hermes protected Dionysus from the jealous wrath of Hera, Dionysus being Zeus’ bastard by Semele. Aristides mentions in his prose hymn to Dionysus (p. 29 Jebb), that a Laconian poet had said that Dionysus drank lion’s milk. Timotheus of Gaza otherwise relates that Dionysus was reared by leopards (Excerpta ex libris de animalibus 11.4).